An Honest Deposition
by fridaylights
Summary: In the thirteen years he's been gone, Ian Kabra has left behind the branches and taken on the unique profession of high society heists. After an unfortunate encounter with the Parisian police, however, Amy Cahill was the last person he expected to break him out of prison.


**Disclaimer** : All unoriginal content, characters, and plots taken from the authors of _Th_ _e 39 Clues_. Everything else is my own creative content, and copying is not permitted.

 **AN** : So, uh, a lot of the French here is in the form of curses. Translate at your own risk, folks.

 **AN HONEST DEPOSITION**

Ian Kabra expected his night to go as normal: con his way through an auction, orchestrate a massive heist, slide out of the facilities, and end his night with his finest glass of bourbon. That was how the end of his week usually went, devoid of drama as he planned his missions down to the millisecond. He meticulously plotted every minute detail, ensuring that not a single thing went haywire.

What he did not expect, however, was the pair of metal handcuffs being locked onto his wrists.

"This is the local Paris police force." The policeman slid a glance towards the scowling man locked in the back of the truck and continued with heavily accented English. "Please notify the Interpol and CIA that we have captured their man."

" _V_ _a te faire foutre._ "

The officer raised his eyebrows. "Your French is perfect. Where did you learn? Aix-en-Provence, perhaps?"

"Nice try, _m_ _orceau de merde_. I have spent enough time here to distinguish between the Parisian police force and MI6."

He smiled, and smoothed his uniform proudly. "You are much smarter than we had originally thought."

Ian snorted and leaned back against the metal walls behind him. "Even the MI6 can't act that well. Tell me," he drawled, and his eyes flicked down to the name on the badge, "how have the Lucians been treating you, Marques?"

He grinned wider. "Right again. It's been a very long time since we've heard from you, Mr. Kabra." He had dropped his accent immediately, replaced with his native British tongue. "We did not expect such a sloppy move."

"It was not sloppy. Everyone makes mistakes."

"Oh, not you, _monsieur_. You haven't made a mistake for the seven years you have been in business." He clucked his tongue, and shook his head sympathetically. "The grand auction, sanctioned by the Prime Minister himself? Even you know that it is foolish to try such a thing."

Ian stared at the ceiling of the dimly lit truck. "Call it what you must, but it was _not_ foolish." His lips curved into a smirk when he thought of the estranged Cahill branches, and the repeated news reports about the infamous _Rembrandt Snake._ Of course, he never settled for one artists' work—why should he, when the world was at his fingertips after the staged public coup of the Kabra estates? He was practically dead to the outside world for an entire thirteen years. "I never come out a loser after a heist, especially one as big as this."

The man simply raised his eyebrows in response, coffee colored hands grabbing onto the levers to secure the door. He hoisted himself inside, locked the truck behind him, and lit a dim light to watch his prisoner closely.

"The world is going to be awfully curious to find out how Ian Kabra fell so hard and became a petty thief."

He scoffed, lifted his hands to jingle his cuffs. "I'm sure the public would love to discover the Cahill bloodline, and learn how my own branch betrayed me. It sounds like the plot of a poorly made Hollywood movie."

The truck slowed to a stop and Marques gave him one last disdainful glance and pushed the doors open, allowing a sliver of moonlight to creep in before he stepped out all the way. As prison guards and agents roughly jostled the man, his lips curved into a confident smirk.

"Remember, Mr. Kabra. Your enemies are _my_ friends."

"Will do, _bâtard_. And you remember this, Marques: your friends are my targets."

* * *

Ian expected a lot of things, but what he did not expect was this:

A dingy holding cell, handcuffs hooked onto a metal bar installed atop an interrogation table. Large doors, secured with at least four locks and guarded by six men. A cup of stale coffee that smelled more like the sewage than food. The unfortunate member of the Interpol sitting across from him, with a heavy mustache and thick eyebrows. And lastly, a very kind offer from MI6 regarding a lawyer waiting for him outside.

He sneered, swatting the cup as hard as he could with his restricted hands, and subsequently staining the agent's white shirt a very unattractive shade of brown. His mind whirled as he sought an escape plan, and the one thing that he did not require was legal counsel.

"You're a real ass, you know that?" the Interpol man grunted, staring down at his shirt as if he still hadn't processed what had happened. "Fine, so be it. We'll throw you right in jail, let MI6 have some fun—"

Ian also did not expect the leggy redhead that strolled into the room at that moment, pushing past guards who looked at his interrogator guiltily, that they had failed to ward off a woman. He heard a name that he hadn't uttered in thirteen years.

"Amelia Cahill, sir. I have been sent here by the British embassy with support from contacts of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service."

Her hair was pulled back in a slick ponytail, slender hips hugged by black trousers and a matching sleeveless blouse. Her feet were caged in a painful looking pair of Louboutin stilettos with red-lacquered soles. At her throat was the jade pendant from her grandmother, transformed into a much more fashionable choker.

The agent examine her dubiously. "MI6 has been on the scene for hours, and haven't mentioned _you,_ specifically, at all." He paused, and made a particularly impressive observation. "And you're not British."

In a heartbeat, she produced a passport that was most likely fake for his inspection. After a moment, he relented, sighed, and heaved his body off the chair. "I will call in and check your credentials. Please take a seat."

She smiled tightly and waited for him to leave, before she focused her green-eyes stare on Ian, surprising him once again with her greeting.

"You son of a bitch."

His eyes tore away from her sculpted arms and he raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I think we established that back when we were sixteen."

Amy shook her head, gripping a cellphone in her hand tightly. He cut her off, pointing at cameras trained on them. She waved him off with a roll of her eyes.

"There's a hack-a-thon back at base. We're covered."

"Ah, the triplets. Wonderful to know that there are men with a fifth of their senses missing trying to toy with MI6 and Interpol." He jingled his cuffs expectantly. "I assume you have a key."

She dangled it in front of his face, but snatched it away and returned it to her breast pocket. "Thirteen years and you decide to become a thief. What an honest way to make a living," she sighed.

"And being the Madrigal leader is _honest_?" he snorted. "Now, can you _please_ unchain me?"

Amy continued as if she hadn't heard him, and he wondered when she'd acquired spunk. Or became so attractive. "You're thirty-three years old. Don't you think it's time to take up your responsibilities in Cahill-land?"

"Why would I want to return to that shit show?" he countered. His eyes went to the ring on her left hand's fourth finger. "So, the toad finally decided to take you to court."

She gave a short laugh when she realized what he was saying, and twisted it off. "No, that was my last little magic trick, trying to rescue Dan."

"We're in the same business, see? You con to break your friends out of prison, I con to make a living." He exhaled, his head throbbing. "Give me the fucking key, Amelia."

She shook her head, her lips quirking upwards. She lifted a finger and cocked her head as if listening for something, squinting her eyes slightly. He gritted his teeth and stared at her.

"Have you bloody lost your mind—" he seethed, but he was interrupted when he was blasted backwards by the sheer force of a large truck crashing into the wall of the room. A victorious Hamilton Holt sat in the driver's seat and beamed at them with a wide grin.

Somehow, in the process, Ian had been blown backwards and the bar that secured him to the table had come undone. He winced, his back aching from the force, and stared down distastefully at the white dust on his suit. Amy grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet; humiliatingly enough, his cuffs were still on. He could hear thundering footsteps and alarms, and cursed under his breath as he was shoved into the second row of seats and forced down.

"The media thinks you're kidnapping me right now," she said pleasantly, as the truck reversed over block of concrete and sped through the city streets. "You have accomplices; the infamous Ian Kabra isn't the one-man show the police had initially thought he was."

He glowered at her from his seat besides her, glancing back at the police cars that were growing farther away as they weaved through late-night traffic. "You just _had_ to ruin my reputation, didn't you?" He considered the beefy man who glanced at him through the rearview mirror. "Good evening, Dolt."

"Cobra."

" _Children_." Amy sighed, then pressed a keycard into Ian's palm.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "What the hell is this?" he inquired, staring at the picture of his face on the Lucian passcard. It didn't fail his attention that she still hadn't handed over the keys to the cuffs.

"Welcome back to the Lucians, Kabra."

"I already told you—"

"Too bad. We already staged a coup of the branch and there's a vacated seat waiting to be filled again. The least you could do is be grateful."

He jingled the metal around his wrists. "I'll be grateful once you get these bloody things off!"

"No. You're going to make a run for it once I do."

"I wasn't, actually, but now that you've mentioned it, I'm considering it."

She ignored him.

"How about I trade you?" he bargained.

"What could you possibly— _oh_." She faltered when he held up her necklace and felt the empty spot on her neck where it had been. "Somehow, you got that off me, but you couldn't grab the key?"

Ian smirked smugly. "It's in your breast pocket. Unless you wanted me to grope you, then no, I couldn't, love."

Hamilton snickered and Amy shot him a narrow-eyed glower. The car slowed to a stop in a dark alley, their tails whizzing by thanks to Cahills in the Paris police department, and she gave a defeated sigh. She pulled out the key and handed it to him warily, and watched as he rubbed his wrists after freeing himself. She held out her hand expectantly.

"No," he said firmly, sliding out of the car when he realized they's reached their destination. He slipped the necklace into his pocket, immensely pleased.

Amy teetered on her heels on the uneven pavement, lagging behind as Hamilton punched a code into a metal door. "You son of a bitch," she seethed.

"Since when did you start cursing?"

"Since I became the leader of a group of assholes. Now, give me my goddamn necklace!" When the doors slid open, he watched out of the corner of his eye as she smoothed her blouse and collected herself with a deep breath. "I'll deal with you later. I swear to God, if you do _anything_ to humiliate me at this conference..."

"Conference?" His lips quirked upwards. "No promises there, _ma chèrie._ "

She flushed a deep shade of scarlet. "Ian, _don't_ screw this up for us."

"Yes, conference," Hamilton interjected gruffly. "It's a hearing in front of the Board of Overseers to make sure you're fit for leadership."

Ian held back a second question—since when did the Cahills have a _Board of Overseers_?

With a long exhale, Amy stepped inside the dimly lit lobby. The metal door was deceiving—inside, there were dark hardwood floors and luxurious furnishings. The hallways were lined with oriental rugs, each doorway towering high, moldings carved with Renaissance art. It was eerily quiet, her clicking heels and Hamilton's thundering footsteps the only sound.

Amy stopped in front of the fifteenth door he counted, gave him a pointed look and ducked inside. After dusting his suit the best he could, he followed.

"Wait—" he said suddenly, sparing a sideways glance at the room. It had a large, dark wooden conference table. Seated were at least fifteen people, each with nametags and wine glasses in front of them, including the five branch leaders. He raised an eyebrow when Hamilton took his place to represent the Tomas, a very familiar singer with chocolate colored skin for the Janus, and Ned Starling for the Ekats.

The spot for the Lucians was notably empty, and he gritted his teeth when he saw that the tag read _Marques Bernard_.

Amy stared at him expectantly, as did the twelve impatient members of the board that watched them carefully, sparing glances through quiet chatter. His voice was a low mutter when he spoke.

"If I were to do anything... regrettable that would expose your bias towards me and potentially reflect badly on myself, would that change the outcome?"

She pursed her lips and stared at him suspiciously. "Probably not. You are the best—and only—candidate they have right now." She paused. "But that doesn't mean you should do it."

Ian seemed to genuinely consider this for a moment, before his arm shot out and rounded her waist. He appreciated her strong back, interrupted when she pressed a palm flat against his chest.

Realization dawned on her, apparent in the way her green eyes flashed. "For the love of God, this is not a good time for—"

He cut her off by dipping her low, his rough fingers tangled in her hair as he cupped her face and pressed a searing kiss to her lips—for an entire thirty-six seconds. As expected, there was pin-drop silence, but he took great satisfaction in the way her mouth moved receptively against his.

When he righted her, he stepped away instantly, sliding a hand into his pocket to fiddle with the necklace he'd snatched. He pressed it into her hand with a smirk as she stared at him, flushed deep red, breathing labored, with an unreadable expression on her face and a fire in her eyes.

He casually strolled towards the Lucian leader's chair, and plucked the nametag with his forefinger and thumb, tossing it behind him. All fifteen occupants of the room—and Amy—were unamused.

"Does anyone have any objections to my reinstatement?"

At the stillness that followed, a corner of his mouth tugged upwards and a dangerous glimmer appeared in his amber eyes. He picked up the glass of red wine by the stem and downed within seconds.

"Good. Now let's begin."


End file.
